The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 14, 1897, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14 1897. 19 HERE are among all city ordinances specific laws regarding the preven- '\ tion and abatement of those offences against the public health and comfort which are consiaered by the City Fathers to come under the head of “nuisances”; but, although *‘nuisance’” is a term which coversa good deal of ground tegall are certain things unquestionably ing to that category of which the law takes no cognizance. If it did we should frequently see, even 1n our plessant City, citizens and citizenesses of unquestioned respectability marched off to police sta- tions to answer for their sins against the nerves and tempers of their long-suffering brothers and sisters, Who that has had the ill-fortune to walk several blocks bebind a man who, saun- tering aiong, evidently on most excellent terms with himselt, allows his cane, held loosely in his hand, to d-r-a-g along on the pavement continuously, can ever for- get or wish to repeat the experience? The noise produced by this apparently in- | nocent performance is so strident, so grat- ing and so absolutely torturing that it can be heard by a sensitive person through all | the otuer noises of the busy street, and | the men who is the cause of it is certainly a nuisance of the most pronounced kind in the opinion of those who suffer through his thoughtlessness. 5 Another variety of man isprone to carry his cane or umbrella under his arm at such an angle as to seriously endanger the eyes and persons of those walking behind Lim. Oi course this is sheer carelessness and not deliberate malice by any means on the partof the individual who thus threat- ens the well-being of his fellow-pedestri- If it were, however, the custom in this country as it is in Germany for any | one noticing the menacing aititude of the weapon in question to strike it down with firm hand and without comment such a proceeding would be a salutary lesson to owner thereot, and if the act were repeated whenever occasion arises our streets wonld soon be freed from a nuisance which is really a dangerous one. Another nuisance, not dangerous but decidedly exasperating, is the man who en- tertains himself by whistling on the street- cars. There are many varieties of him— some young, some middle-aged, and all of ttem old enough to know better. Some of them, a very few, whistle in tune, but many there be, alas! who do not. Some whistle softly and medita- tively, as though hoiding sweet musical | communion with theirinner selves; but the | bt ; "y HEARD MELODIES ARE SWEET, \BUT—THOSE UNHEARD d SARE SWEETER__ great majority whistle with an insistant shrillness which pierces through the un- happy hearers’ ears like unto a two-edged sword. Some whistle popular songs, some dance music: others, more ambitious, essay op- eratic airs, But whatever they whistle. or whether they whistle well or ill, certain it atany one with at all sensitive ears | 0is compelled to ride any distance in | tbe same car with one of them zenerally | emerges therefrom in a state of mind bor- | dering on distraction. | What would youdo,”” I once asked a | uctor, being moved thereto by | an impulse of feminine curiosity, “if & woman should begin to sing in a car?’ “A woman wouldn't’ answered the blue-coated one, sententiously, ‘‘unless she were drank or crazy or something.” “But if one did ?”" 1 persisted. “Weil, 'twouldn’t do to have her dis- turb other folks, you know,” was the reply. “I should have to ask her to let up, and if she wouldn’t she’d have to get off the caror I'd have to call a police- man.” Despite his firm convictions concerning = / LEGALIZED &Y AVICTIM OF © A NERVOU'S-PROS- \TRATION = CAUSED By NUISANCES,|. | the undesirability of allowing a woman to ways that men do they yet have much to FEET ON THE BACK /OF ONES CHAIR. 00THES AND €ALMS, THE NERVES. < THE INFANTILE Lo B ud o ,!on oo NUISANCE._ i i i Children are also allowed to eat fruit| “disturb folks” by vocal music, I noticed | answer for at the bar of public opinion. | and candy in the cars, and if they do not | that this same conductor never attempted to silence a fat and contented-looking man who satin a corner of his car one day, with h's pudgy bands plunged in his pockets and his hat tipped over his eyes, and whistied—shades of departed day selections from *Pinafore” in the most excruciatingly tunecless manner imagina- vle, all the way from Van Ness avenue to | Kearny street. ! Butif women do not err in jast the ! For instance, there are hundreds of fond mothers who, with smiling disregard of the feelings, the comfort or the rights of others, allow their “jewels” to—no mat- ter what may be the state of their foot- ts of cars, and | gear—clamber up on the se in order to gaz: out of a window kneel down with their muddy or dusty shoes projecting into the narrow passage-way, making doormats of the garments of all wWto are obiiged to pass by them. manage to besmear their neighbors during the operation become, when their hands ! are dripping with juice or melted sugar, | matamorphosed into positive terrors to | their feliow-passengers, while the mothers, interested in conversation, their bundles | or the latest baby, see nothing of the con- | sternation written upon the countenances | of those around them who expect every | moment to have their clothing ruined by | ! the onslaughts of the small gormandizers. | A trying thing which many women do in public gatherings, all unconscious, it seems, of its effect upon their victims, is | to put their feet upon & rung of the chair in which another person 1s seated. If that person happens to be a nervous, delicately organized man or woman such an inflic- tion is nothing short of absolute torture. A lady who attended a meeting of a very | personal presence is aimost suf | is, however, the omnipresent won | batpins so long that three or four incues of the lower part of her chair during the entire session. T'his infringement upon the rignts of others is common everywhere, but queerly enough a person who summons up suffi- cient courage to manifest any annoy- ance or resentment under the circum- stances is looked upon by the offender as a very unamiable «nd unaccommodating individual indeed, and any meek protest from him or her caused by the racking | wretchedness of the situation is received | witha cold and lofty hauteur which is crushing in the extreme. Women are quite as exasperatingly prone as men to attempt to reverse the “rule of the road” and turn to the leit on our crowded sidewalks, and they look quite as ridiculous in the ‘chassez ng” that invariably ensues. There are women also who make = fad of perfuming their belongings until their cating in crowded cars or places of amu-ement, the sweet but heavy scents actually poisoning the air in their vicinity. Worst of all purely feminine nuisances with of each one she wears protrude from her head-covering, the needlelike points threatening dire disaster to all who ap- proach her. A vivacious female with her head thus decorated and deiended is always sure of room enough in a crowd, for she is an object of positlve terror to every one in her immediate vicinity, and those nearest her will tumble over each other in the | effort to get out of her way whenever a movement of her neck turas the busi- ness ends of her glittering and most effec- tive weapous 1n their direction. There is another form of nuisance, for which both sexes are equally 1o blame, that is frequently met with in museums, victure galleries and similar places of pubiic resort, and that is the couple, gen- erally young, who meet there for the pur- pose of quarreling, *‘making up,’” or sim- piy “spooning.” These parties usually pre-empt a posi- tion near some object of special interest and remain there absorbed in the business in nand, only noticing those around them sufficiently to manifest decided hos:ility whenever any one dares approach the in- visible *‘dead line’’ with which they have apparently surrounded themselv In their estimation the persons who, moved by a desire to view the exhibits in heir vicinity, have the temerity to come tanywhere near them, are simoly dis | able specimens of the Paul Pry genu-, and well deserve the contemptuous glances and sotto voce sarcastic comments on the vulgarity and general offensiveness of “eavesdropping’’ that fall to their lot. In the estimation of the parties frowned | upon, however, who are conscious of the rectitude of their motives, and, ha no decidedly object to the hindrance and an- noyance of their station presence and “swagger’’ club not long since went home suffering agonies and went to bed, having been made actually ill because a woman who sat bebind her had made a footstool their unpleasing imputations, such couples are nuisances indecd. \ FLORENCE PERCY MATHESON. THRILLING LIFE STORY OF A NOJABLE PIONEER WOMAN OF THE WILD WEST. HERE is now living in San Fran-| cisco, at 415 Eddy street, a most | notable woman—one who has been ly identified with some of the most surring events in the country’s history. She is Mrs. Selina Dodge Truett, and her | father was General Henry Dodge, the in- | trepid Indian-fighter Who conquered | Black Hawk, the cruel and bloodthirsty | ved devil who led the Sac and the Fox | Indians against the bardy pioneers of Towa, Iilinois and Wisconsin in the early | Mrs. Truett is now 78 years of age, but neither in personal manners nor conversa- | tion does she show her very extreme age, | and no one unacquainted with her nistory would consider the interesting lady more | than 60 years of age. And yet her early life was spent amid scenes of savage war- | fare, and she and those she loved were | daily exposed to awful dangers, while a | fate most horrible hungabove their heads. | Yet this remarkable woman, at the age of almost four score years, sits and chats most interestingly with those who call | upon her, and is & most amiable hostess. No family was more prominent than hers in the stirring times {hat marked the early settlement of Illinois, Wisconsin ana Towa, and no names are more lustrous | in the annals of those trying times than those of her father, General Henry Dodge, and her brother, General A.C. Dodge, both of whom, on the field of battle and in the legislative halls of the Nation made their power and influence felt on be. | half of the setuers. | But she can trace the fighting stock from which she came back farther than these—to Dr. Israel Dodge, her paternal grandfather, who lived in the province of | Louisiana before it became territory of the | United States, and who fought valiantly | in the War of the Revolution; -was wounded at Brandywine; served at the extreme outposts on the Mississippi, and after the revolution underwent all the ex- posures and perils of those who fought upon “the dark and bloody ground” in Kentucky. Mrs. Truett is very modest and 1s quite diffident in telling of the stirring events of ner lite. ‘then sbe feels herself apart from | ynd ohildren this world. this life began to wane afier the death of | ber husband, and has continued to do so, until she feels very little personal concern | Her interest in the things of | in the passing show. Aftera life of varied | and thrilling experiences, she has retired | within herself and tranquily awaits death, firmly believing that when she | passes from this earth it will be to be re- united to her dearly beloved husband who has gone before. | “I now am through with this world,” the old lady said the other day. “I no| Jonger take interest in earthly things. I| think 1 can say, like St. Paul, ‘I’ve fought | the good fight’ I am ready 1o go. My | comfort lies here,”” and Mrs. Dodge drew from ber pocket a rosary and a crucifix, on | which she looked fondly. | Selina Doage was born at St. Lora, near the old French village of St. Genevieve, | below St. Louis, the oldest settlement on the west side of the Mississippi, It still exists, and French manners ard customs and a patois still prevail there. The Dodge home then was on the Selina River, where Henry Dodge owned large salt works. This daughter was named Selina after the river on whose banks the family lived. Here at her birthplace Se- lina Dodge spent tne first years of her life. | She has but little recollection of them | now. Buithe monotony of the existence on the Selina was soon to be broken. 1n 1827 Henry Dodge decided to follow the tide of immigration that had set to- ward the Feon River lead mines. He se- cured passage for his wi‘e ana children on the steamboat Indiana, then one of the | bim. 11827, Selena Truett of This Gity Relates Her Harrowing Experiences in Black Hawk's War--An Early Love TJale of Jeff Davis, the Gonfederate. driving herds of cattle and horses before He was accompanied by the slaves be had inberited from his father. He promised them that he would set them free after their safe arrival in the new El Dorado they sought, and in addition woula give each negro forty acres of land, | a yoke of oxen and a horse. This promise he kept, and in the dark days of Indian warfare that foillowed these negroes, in the absence of the white men, stood alone the barriers between the savages and the women and children of the whites. While the women and children of the expedition were in constant apprehension during the early stages of the journey of attacks from Indians and torture and hor- rible death at the hands of the savages, it | was not until they reached the site of the | present city of Rock Island that their | liveliest fears of being butchered by the redskins were excited. This was a favor- ite trysting ground of the big chiefs of the Sacs, the Koxes and at times of the Win- nebugos. Mrs. Truett remembers the ar- rival of herself and her iather's family, and their fellow-voyagers at this place in 7. Black Hawk was there, and she re- members having seen him. She saw him thereafter, when she was older and had a grealer acquaintance with the Indians, and talked 1o him in the innocent fear of childhood. This place of “the gathering of the chiefs” was the largest Indian town in the | Northwest then, and on the day of the ar- rival there of the party of pioneers, of | which the present Mrs. Selina Dodge | Truett was a very young member, there | were gathered there such braves as Black Hawk, Keokuk, Poweshick, Wapello and | Mahaska. These chieis and their follow- ers were all decked in their gayest and gaudiest attire and wore their brightest war paints. The effect upon the women of the company can well be | imagined; but they were all of bardy pio- | neer stock and bravely pursued their journey. The company of pioneers arrived in alens, IiL., on the Fourth of July, 1827, to find the people of the town in the throes of an Indian alarm. The Winnebagos were upon the warpath and had commit- ted some murders a few days previous in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien. The savages had fir d upon keelboatsin the river ana killed their occupants and were then threatening to exterminate all the miners and settlersin the Territory. From that time on until several years alterward Selina Dodge knew all the terrors of In- dian warfare. For weeks at a time she and other members of her family were surrounded by howling, often drunken and crazy, savages. Their lives were 1m- periled, and at times fate worse than death at the hands of the Indians con- fronted them. Upon his arrival at Galena Henry Dodge, because of his valor in the War of 1812, was asked to take command of an armed force to be raised to defend the mining district. He accepted the com- mand and moved his family to a place that became known as Dodgeville, forty- five miles northeast of Galena. At Dodgeville Mrs. Truett as a child passed through scenes and incidents that made the stoutest hearls quail. “Our nome there,” she said to the writer, “was in & small blockhouse, whose walls were pierced with loopholes and which was surrounded with a stockade made of logs, with heavily barred gates, which were wonders of the Mississippi, while he him- self went on horseback tnrough Illinois, kept always locked. During the time my father was away on his campaign against the Winnebagos the women aad children at the blockhouse were protected by a small garrison of a few white men and negroes.” Mrs. Truett's brother, Augustas C, Dodge, who afterward became United States Senator from Iowa, was then but a boy, scarcely able to carry & gun, yet he insisted on joining the expedition. Se persistent was he in his demands that he be allowed to go with the company that his father finally found a small shotgun for him, and, handing it to his son, said, “Shoot well, my boy.” The boy obeyed his father's injunction and fought va- liantly throughout the struggle that fol- lowed. The leaders of the murderous Winne- bagos were captured and a season of peace followed. Then Henry Dcdge and the settlers who had ventured into the wild country with them turned their attention to more peaceful pursuits. The business MRS. SELINA DODGE TRUETT. of mining and smelting was taken up and carried on success ully. But this condition of things had not come about before the women and chil- dren in the little stockade had been sule jected to many days and nights of terror. The prairies were covered with the red- skins and they afterward threatened the stockade and the lives of those intrenched behind its walls. Unscrupulous white men would sell whisky to non-combatant | Indians, who hung about the settiements, | and they would become obstreperous and | threaten the lives of the whites. But the little garrison left to protect the women and children and composed largely of neproes succeeded in keeping the savages at bay. The Territory had not then been ceded to the United States and, being in an In- dian country, and realizing the necessity of cultivating peaceful relations with the | savages, Henry Dodge, atter the capture | | of the Winnebago murderers, made ami- cable overtures to the redskins. “Father would make frequent presents to the chiefs,” said Mrs. Truets, *‘in the hope of preserving peace. He would give them barrels of flour and pork, when flour | was worth $12 a barrel and pork $30; but at times the Indians would become bad. I remember one time when a warrior, a tremendous fellow, over six feet tall, canye to the house and made resolute demands. Father told him to go away, but the I dian became more persistentand insolent, aud father knocked him down with a three-legged stool. Father lost his tem- per and was about to kill the Indian, but my brother interfered and prevented this, and it is well that he did so, for if the savage had been killed the men of his trive would have massacred our whole family.” One cold day & number of Indians went to the Dodge home and demanded food and drink. They told General Dodge to leave the place or they would kill him. When matters became critical young Augustus Dodge seized a sword and thrusting it against. the throat of the leader of the band of savages ‘threatened to kill him unless he and his followers left | the house. The Indians left and their leader after them. There were many similar scenes through which Mrs. Truett passed during those | alarming days of her girlhood. Upon ihe breaking out of the Black Hawk i 2, his father was a colonel in the Michigan territorial militia. On the 8th of May of that year this intrepid pio- neer, at the head of a small band of his neighbors and accompanied by his sons, | Henry and Augustus, started on a perilous | journey toward the Rock River. They had not gone far when Colonel Dodge re- ceived a message by runner notifying him that the people of Dodgeville and of all the country in the immediate vicinity were in immediate danger from the Indians. Colonel Dodge and his com- mand hurried back to Dodgeville and im- mediately began to erect additional stock- ade forts and to organize for defense. He establisiied his headquarters at Fort Union, near bis home at Dodgeville. Then followed the cutbreax, and for two months the fiendish savaces reveled in a carnival of blood. Old men and women and children, s well as the young and strong of the whites, were cruelly butch- ered. Every schoolchild has read thst | dark chapter in the history of the early settlement of the West. The Indians | killed their victims in the most brutal manner and often ate their flesh and drenk their blood. Mrs. Truett was in the midst of it all at Dodgeville, and although she was but a young girl the scenes she witnessed then made such a terrioly vivid impression upon her mind that she now recalls them with horror as she sits, so mzny years later, in her quier home in California, far removed from that bloody battie-ground of the early pioneer days. Young Augustus was made a lieutenant of volunteers for home protection, and with a small body of valiant men guardea the women and children in the stockades from bands of prowling Indians. And Christiana Dodge, wife of Geperal Henry Dodge and mother of Mrs. Trustt, with | her daughters, stayed in the fort and cooked for the soldiers. Mrs. Truett is very proud ot her mother’s coursge, and from all accounts of those troublous times ske has cause to be. Mrs. Truett recalls the battle of Bad Axe and all the stirring incidents of the cam- paign, including the final capture of Black Hawk, and although her memory is sone- what dimmed by the flight of years, she yet talks interestingly of them. After Black Hawk was conquered Gen- eral Dodge again interested himself in mining and the family home remained at Dodgeville. About this time Jeff Davis, then a young lieutenant of dragoons, was stationed ata post near Dodgeville, and he, with other officers of the garrison, be- came frequent visitors at the Dodge home. In connection with these visits Mrs, Truett tells a little bit of unwritten his- tory which, had its inale been otherwise, might have changed the course of the Civil war. Itappears from her narrative that Jeff Davis, the young subaltern, became very attentive to Mrs. Truett’s older sister, Mary, and whenever he visited the Dodge home showed a decidea preference for Miss Mary’s company, and the two would take lonz walks across the sun-kissed plairies 1 together and gather great bunches of wild flowers. But young Davis was called away to another post, and when he returned t Dodgeville eight years later and formall asked for the hand of Miss Mary in mar- riage he was refused, for another had be=n more constant in his wooing. And then and there another page of history was written. After comparative peace came to that erstwhile bloody section, Selina Dodse was sent to a convent in Illinois, and there she was educated. After leaving the convent she was married to Myers F. Truett,who served during the Black Hawk | War and who died in Mexico eight years ago. She came to California with her hus- | band in the '50,’s, undergoing all the hard- | ships of travel across the continent in those early days. Her husband became one of the Vigilantes, and was well known in California at the time of his death. His | was also a most remarkable life, fraught with strivings and dangers, in many of which his intrepid wife shared. After the Black Hawk war honors crowded fast upon Mrs. Truett's father, Henry Dodge, and his brother Adolphus. |In 1834 President Andrew Jackson ap- pointed Henry Dodge colonel of the United States Dragoons, and in the same year he conducted a campaign against the Comanche and Kiowa Indians in the Southwest, and in 1835 was the leader of an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. ‘When the Territory of Wisconsin was or- ganized in 1836 he was appointed the Governor. In 1838 Augustus Dodge was appointed Reeister of the Land Office at Burlington, Iowa. In 1840 he was elected a delegate to Congress, and in the same year his father was elected delegate to Congress from the Territory of Wisconsin, and father and son took seats together in the National House of Representatives— the first and only instance of the kind in the bistory of the Government. Kather and son served in the House with distine- tion. Augustus Dodge was particularly active in advancing the settlement of Oregon. In 1848 the latter was elected one of the first two United States Senators from | Tows, and as seven years before the son | had welcomed the father to his seat in the House of Represeatatives the son in turn was now welcomed to his place in the Senate by his father, who had been elected to the upper house & few months previous. They served together as Sena- tors until 1855. The presence of father and son in the Senate as members at tha same time is without precedent. In 1855 Augustus Dodge was appointed Minister to Spain, and served in that capacity at Madrid for four years. All through their lives father and son served their country with distinction. Hon. W. W. Dodge, present State Sen- ator of Iows, is a son of Adolphus Dodge and a nephew of Mrs. Truatt. He was unaware of the fact that his annt was still alive until last November. He thought she was dead, and the fact that she still lived and resided in San Fraucisco was unknown to him. That he shouid remain in Ignorance of hisaunt’s existence is not a matter for wonder, as she is very retir- ing in her disposition ana singe her hus- band’s death eight years ago she has more than ever desired seclusion. And as one sits and looks upon the calm face of this aged lady whose childhood eyes witnessed such scenes of blood and carnage as have been recounted, he is not surprised that as she approaches ths threshold of eternity she iurns to book in which it is written: *I shall lead you forth beside the waters of comfort,” and wherein it is said: “All thy ways are pleasantness and thy paths are peace.” a. A 15-pound codfish, recenily cxam- ined, was found to have a roe con- taining 4,822,000 eggs.